Shadow's Pleasure: The Shadow Warder Series, Book Two (A Paranormal/Urban Fantasy Romance Series) (6 page)

She’d fried him. Kiernan didn’t know how else to describe it. A flare of living fire had shot out of her hands and hit the asshole Shadow right in the chest. Somehow Kiernan didn’t think she used the regular tools to do her glass art. She didn’t need a furnace. She
was
a furnace. He’d never imagined that a Shadow could command that kind of power. To a guy whose pet hobby was blowing shit up, Sorcha was looking like the perfect woman.

“Is he dead?” he asked, more to jolt her out of her shock than out of concern for Steven. It worked. Sorcha’s fixed stare broke and she turned to face Kiernan.

“No. Just passed out. But I don’t think we should stick around until he wakes up. This could get complicated.”

“Yeah.” Kiernan took another look at the Shadow’s burned chest. He knew the man would heal quickly if he wasn’t dead, but he agreed with Sorcha. Kiernan didn’t want to try to explain the mess that was Steven. “You packed?” he asked her.

“Pretty much.” Spinning around to face the kitchen, Sorcha grabbed the red glass hummingbird and the small box beside it. Her creation in hand, she disappeared into the bedroom at the rear of the cottage. A second later, she reappeared with a huge duffel bag, fully stuffed. He took it from her before she could object, leading the way to the front door. “Do you need anything from your room in the main building?” Sorcha asked as they closed the door to the cottage behind them.

“Nothing I can’t leave behind. I have the keys to the truck. It’s parked out front.”

“Good. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Sorcha rested her head on the back of the seat, bracing her arm on the door against the swaying of the truck. It felt as if Kiernan was taking the mountain roads a little too fast. Or maybe it was just that she hadn’t been in a moving vehicle many times in the past ten years. Either way, he’d left her alone for the past half hour. When they’d first gotten in the truck, she’d said, “I need some time to work on my shield.”

Kiernan hadn’t questioned her except to ask, “Music going to bother you?”

“Only if it sucks,” she’d said.

He’d given her another of those killer grins that lit his hazel eyes from within and switched on the heavy beat of hard rock. Sorcha had smiled at the familiar sound. She recognized the band as one she listened to while she worked on her glass. It was easy to slip into meditation with the pounding music to insulate her.

As she’d suspected for years, all she needed was distance from Steven to regain control of her mind. His talent was insidious and powerful, but it relied on proximity. Every mile Kiernan put between them weakened Steven’s hold until Sorcha felt the last wisps of his presence fade away.

More quickly than she’d hoped, once Steven was out of her head, Sorcha had her shield fully repaired. All Shadows shielded their minds instinctively once they’d been shown how. Unless there was some kind of interference, or the Shadow had never learned the basic elements of his or her power, the mind could protect itself. Once Sorcha led the energies that made up her power into the familiar weave it had held for most of her life, the strands of pure energy had taken over, creating an impenetrable net around her consciousness. Nothing was getting through unless Sorcha let it. Not even her former mentor. Now that he was out, he couldn’t get back in. She’d make sure of it. Certain she was okay, she opened her eyes and looked around. They were still in the mountains, past the tight switchbacks that led out of the area immediately surrounding the Sanctuary.

“Better?” Kiernan asked, sneaking a quick look at her.

“Much. I knew if I could get away from him I could get my shield back.”

“So it wasn’t a sure thing. Just a guess.”

“Not a guess,” Sorcha said. “I was very sure. But I couldn’t test it unless I got out.” He snuck another glance over at her. Sorcha wondered what he was looking for.

“You going to tell me what that was?”

“What
what
was?” she asked.

“You know what I’m talking about.”

“It’s complicated.”

“We have time,” he said. “You’re going to have to be honest with me if we’re going to work together.”

Sorcha didn’t say anything at first. How to explain the situation with Steven to someone who had walked in at the end? “You heard in the meeting that Steven was my mentor and that I used to be a tracker?” Kiernan nodded. “About ten years ago I was working with my partner, looking for Vorati like we did every day, when my powers surged during a fight.”

“What does that mean? What’s a surge?” Kiernan asked.

“A Shadow’s abilities don’t always grow in regular intervals, especially for those of us with unique talents. Most strong surges happen during adolescence, but I had a second surge a little later than normal,” she said in a wry tone. “It brought on the ability to create extreme heat. And it destroyed my shield.”

The day had begun like any other, a coffee to go and muffin in hand. She and Keeley had walked the streets, alert for the telltale electric prickle of a nearby Voratus. Just when they’d thought the day would be a bust, they’d found something they’d never seen before, something they’d never heard of. A nest. Four Vorati in one house, all healthy and ready to fight. While the weakened souls around a Voratus victim often attracted other demons, as a rule, the things liked to hunt and feed alone. They were territorial. They didn’t live together. Sorcha and Keeley had thought they were going into the house to save the humans inside from a single demon. By the time they’d realized their mistake, retreat was cut off. In the dingy front room of a rundown row house, their choices had narrowed to fight or die.

At first it had seemed like they’d be all right. Four against two wasn’t bad odds when the two were Shadow trackers. Then two more demons had entered. Sorcha had been wrapped up in fighting a hulking brute with long, greasy hair. She hadn’t heard the door open behind her. When four hands closed on her arms at the same time, a rage of prickling fire had passed through her nerves. She remembered screaming, an agony of pressure in her mind, immense heat, and then nothing.

“I woke up in one of the guest rooms in the Sanctuary,” she said. “It was a week later. I had no shield. Nothing. Even very young Shadows have some basic shielding ability. Our minds don’t function well without it.”

“I know. Hannah was sent to a mental institution. They thought she was insane. A few days with Conner helping her and she was fine.”

“Conner helped her?” Sorcha sent him a curious glance. “What could he do?”

“Warders use a shield too. Didn’t you know that?” Sorcha shook her head. “We need to keep you Shadows out. And the Vorati.”

“I didn’t think of that,” she said. It hadn’t occurred to her that Warder minds needed protection as well.

“So why didn’t you just rebuild your shield?”

“I tried. In the beginning, no one could get near me. For weeks, I had to pass notes under the door. They left me food on trays. The first person who got close was Steven. We didn’t part on good terms when I left the Sanctuary to go into the field as a tracker, but he lent me his shield until mine was functioning again. He said it would help me calm my mind enough to get control.”

“He never meant to let you go,” Kiernan said.

“No. I should have been even more powerful after the surge. But I couldn’t get a grip on my shield. Every time I let go, the energy collapsed. I couldn’t function without Steven.”

“Fucking bastard.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “It took me almost a year to figure out what was happening. He was keeping me helpless.”

Just like the day she and Keeley had been attacked, she’d understood the danger too late. Steven hadn’t simply been lending her his shield. He’d been boring holes into her mind, creating secret, hidden tunnels into her most inner thoughts. Sorcha was defenseless against him. She was at his mercy, and he’d wanted far more from her than she was willing to give. He’d been patient, so sure he owned her that he’d been willing to wait for her to come to him.

“Was he hurting you?” Kiernan asked.

Sorcha liked the way he talked to her. Not making a big deal of things, just asking what he wanted to know. She was so tired of people tiptoeing around her. She had the feeling he wouldn’t always say what she wanted to hear, but at least he’d be straight with her.

“Not at first, but once I realized what he was doing, I tried to get away from him. I told Iris and Garran what was going on. I even tried talking to my parents. Steven was smarter than me. He laid the groundwork, so by the time I asked for help, the consensus was that I was acting out by making up stories. That I was frustrated over my inability to shield, and since Steven was my mentor, I was taking out my unhappiness on him. They thought I was acting like a spoiled child.”

It was a brilliant, devious fiction. Any protest Sorcha had made, any accusation or plea for help, only made her seem more like a selfish brat and gained her more time alone with Steven. And with no way to leave the Sanctuary, Sorcha was at his mercy.

“He trapped you,” Kiernan said.

“No one believed me. Not even my friends. Only Keeley and Kate. But they’ve got their own problems. They both tried to help, but no one would listen to them either. The more they protested, the less anyone seemed to pay attention.”

“And you just stayed there? A prisoner?”

“I tried to leave on my own a few times,” she said. “They always brought me back. For my own good, they said. After the last escape attempt, Iris told me that if I wasn’t going to take my well-being seriously, they’d have to consider officially sequestering me.”

“Is that what it sounds like?”

“If it sounds like being locked in the Shadow version of a mental institution, then yes. I would have lost everything. My friends, my glass, my home. I started playing along after that.”

“And he started hurting you,” Kiernan said.

Sorcha drew in a ragged breath. “He kept waiting for me to give in. When I didn’t, he got frustrated. I didn’t really get desperate until Caerwyn and the girls went missing. I don’t know if I can forgive Iris and Garran for not immediately letting me go after them. I thought about running one more time, but I couldn’t figure out how to keep from getting caught long enough to find them.”

“You’re out now,” Kiernan said.

“I am.”

“That’s the reason for the giant duffel bag,” Kiernan said. “You’re not planning to go back.”

“No. If we get Caerwyn and the girls out safely, I’m not going back.”

Sorcha rested her head against the seat and watched the scenery flash by. Her stomach rumbled. Breakfast was hours before, and she was starving. There hadn’t been enough latent energy in her cottage to fuel the fire she’d thrown at Steven, so her body had burned itself out.

“I need food,” she said.

“Can you hang on a little longer? We’re not exactly surrounded by civilization.”

Not answering, Sorcha studied her surroundings again then checked the clock on the dashboard. If they’d been on the road for a half hour, they should be on I-40 east, just past Crossville. Instead, they’d passed Dunlap going west and were headed to Chattanooga. Maybe Birmingham or Atlanta. Not Charlotte. Was the Warder trying to lay a false trail? Or did he just not know where he was going? Kiernan didn’t strike her as a guy who was sloppy or unprepared, but no one was perfect all the time.

“You do realize we’re headed away from Charlotte,” Sorcha said, trying not to sound like a smart-ass. She wasn’t sure she succeeded. Some of the snark may have come from the grinding in her empty belly. If they’d gone the right way, she could be downing drive-through burgers right now. As it was, they’d passed the few places to eat in Dunlap and were once again surrounded by nothing but trees. Chattanooga wasn’t close enough, and she really wanted to eat now that she’d realized how hungry she was.

“Yeah,” Kiernan said. He gave her another one of those sidelong glances, like he was trying to figure out how she was going to react to something.

“Are you going to explain why we’re headed the wrong way?” she asked, the irritation clear in her voice.

“Not exactly the wrong way. We’re making a detour.”

“Where?” Sorcha asked.

“Atlanta. We’re going to see a friend of mine for a little help.”

“Explain,” she said. Another look from those warm hazel eyes. Every time his eyes met hers she got a little flutter in her chest. She was going to have to get past that if they were going to work together.

“It’s going to be dicey enough for me to walk back into Charlotte like nothing happened. Conner is my closest friend. We’ve been partners for decades. He’s one of the most loyal and reliable Warders I’ve ever known. And he completely disappeared. Michael, the Director who has your Shadows, has to know he had something to do with Hannah’s escape. No one has any actual proof that I had anything to do with it, but they’re not going to believe I’m clueless. Especially not if I show up with a Shadow in tow. Just the sight of you with me will be enough to put us both in a world of hurt. If we’re hunting for your friends, I can’t stash you out of sight. You need to be out there. Or am I missing something about the way you work?”